Hello,

Recently, I have received notices from Boinc manager in the form of "BOINC can't access Internet - check network connection or proxy configuration." However I have changed nothing in my computer's setup. It seems that it now does not like my VPN. Once I disconnect from VPN, it is able to connect without a problem. Once I reconnect the VPN, it tells me it has lost its internet connection.

My VPN worked fine with Boinc before. I am not sure if it is a red herring, but this change of behavior seems to have coincided with Rosetta's move to HTTPS. I found this mention of something similar, but am not sure if it applies.

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=13894&postid=96341

Anyone else seen this or have any tips?

Thanks!

Both of your machines seem to have downloaded some work. When did you change to the new project URL with the "S"?

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Thanks for responding. I can not say for certain, but I believe I changed the URL late last week, maybe Thursday or Friday (14-15 May). I only changed it on one of the machines since the other one was already processing.

Both of your machines have requested, and been sent new work today. So, perhaps your internet service had a brief lapse, but it seems fine now. You could review the BOINC event log to see more specifics about when and how long BOINC was unable to connect to the internet.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

This is true. I disconnect periodically so it can upload its completed tasks and download new. The problem is still persisting however. Can you please direct me to where the logs are? There is nothing helpful in /Users/<user>/Library/Application Support/BOINC and I can't find any BOINC/Rosetta-related output in the console.

Are you using the BOINC Manager? Or, where did you see the message you originally reported about "BOINC can't access Internet - check network connection or proxy configuration."??

The bottom of this page shows the event log. Note carefully the described differences between Windows steps and Mac steps.
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Advanced_view#The_Event_Log_window

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Can't believe I didn't see that menu option. Thanks for pointing that out! I first saw the message in the list of notices, if I am not mistaken. Looking into the log, unfortunately little more information is exposed. In fact the message is exactly the same.

Wed May 20 14:25:24 2020 | Rosetta@home | Backing off 00:01:19 on upload of Junior_HalfRoid_design6_cart_COVID-19_SAVE_ALL_OUT_IGNORE_THE_REST_0zs6uw6g_929381_18_0_r1885224697_0
Wed May 20 14:27:04 2020 |  | Project communication failed: attempting access to reference site
Wed May 20 14:27:33 2020 |  | BOINC can't access Internet - check network connection or proxy configuration.
Wed May 20 14:39:29 2020 | Rosetta@home | Backing off 00:01:38 on upload of Junior_HalfRoid_design6_cart_COVID-19_SAVE_ALL_OUT_IGNORE_THE_REST_2hx7sb3o_929581_22_0_r955138500_0
Wed May 20 14:41:12 2020 | Rosetta@home | Backing off 00:01:11 on upload of Junior_HalfRoid_design6_cart_COVID-19_SAVE_ALL_OUT_IGNORE_THE_REST_2hx7sb3o_929581_22_0_r955138500_0

Have you set the preferences so that BOINC only uses the network at specific times of day? BOINC also has activity settings that allow you to disable network access, or enable network access based on a schedule that you setup. ...are you using those? Or turning network access on and off from the operating system?

BOINC does not require a network connection that is always on. But, if it trips upon an event that causes it to want to do network access (such as trying to upload the file shown in your message), it will try to access the network and throw an error like that when you have the network down.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Thanks for the continued suggestions. I do not use any of the Boinc tools to schedule network activity nor is it schedules to only run at certain times of the day. It runs continually.

I am fairly confident that the problem lies with the VPN somehow. I have consistency demonstrated over the past week or so that the problem only occurs when I am connected to the VPN. If I disconnect from the VPN, BOINC immediately reestablishes its connection and can upload finished jobs and download new.

Which VPN do you use? Perhaps others have experience with using it.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

A good suggestion. Is anyone else seeing problems with their BOINC losing its internet connection when you connect to ProtonVPN or any other VPN?

https://protonvpn.com